Category Archives: From the PTO

FORJ (Families Organizing for Racial Justice) Survey

We are asking for your feedback around Racial Justice Activites at Bigelow!

Bigelow FORJ is a school-based chapter of Newton’s Families Organizing for Racial Justice (FORJ). Newton FORJ is a group of diverse Newton families helping our children learn about issues of power and inequality and how to stand up for racial justice. We seek to generate understanding and curiosity about differences in our society, and to work together towards racial equity.

As we begin to plan activities for learning this year, please help us understand your interest and needs regarding racial justice at Bigelow by completing this brief survey, which includes activities around this year’s One School One Book, New Kid.

Fill the Survey
PLEASE RESPOND by no later than August 31, 2020.

Any questions? please email bigelowforj@gmail.com

Your Bigelow FORJ representatives:
Danielle Ahite-De Medeiros, Davena Jackson, Julie Landesman, Madeline McNeely, Margo Michaels, Ruth Hertzman-Miller, Becca Schulman Havemeyer

A big thank you from the PTO!

The 2019/2020 school year will be long remembered as a year that brought huge changes and challenges for all of us. We are so thankful to our wonderful Bigelow community for rallying behind the school, staff, students and the PTO these past many weeks. You have supported us and confirmed how much we all believe in our love of learning, our respect for oneself and one another and our commitment to making the world a better place.

We hope you have a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you in the fall!

A special thank you to our Co-President Una Simmons!

We wish to send our heartfelt gratitude to Una, who has worked tirelessly for the Bigelow PTO for the past nine years, as her three daughters, Chelsea, Tess and Katelin have all attended Bigelow.

She has served in a number of roles including Vice President of Fundraising, Co-President and Chairperson of Ten Tables/Supper Stroll, and Big Night.  She has organized countless events such as Celtics Night, Skate Night, Back to School picnics, car washes, and bake sales. She took the lead a few weeks ago to organize the eighth grade gift to the school and the goody bags for the eighth grade students to make sure they would have a memorable gift at the end of their time at Bigelow. And it was Una who conceived the wonderful plan to have a reunion party in 2024 for our 2020 graduating class.

During her tenure, she has overseen raising over $200,000 for the PTO. Her enthusiasm for the Bigelow community is unrivaled, and her hard work and devotion to the PTO is unmatched.

Thank you again, Una, for all you have done.

Fall PTO Events

The PTO will be back in contact in early August with further information regarding PTO events once school opens. The Back to School picnic, 6th grade potluck dinner and Ten Tables traditionally take place in September and October. As we look forward to the start of the school year, we are hopeful that we will have a better understanding of what we are able to do.

Explore Mr. Swan’s Resources on Current Civil Rights Protests

We invite students and families to explore with the 8th Grade class some resources organized by Mr. Swan, Bigelow Civics teacher.

From Mr. Swan, Jun 11 – 

“As perhaps you can imagine, in my role as a Civics teacher, I have felt uniquely overwhelmed by the news cycle of local and worldwide events, emotional turmoil, public outcry, and Big Ideas swirling around the past two weeks. [So] today I introduced a new task that dives straight into the middle of all those swirling issues. […] Students have 5 days to explore at least 5 boxes in this Choice Board. […]

I designed this board to include a variety of formats, faces, and voices; multiple potential topics of interest; diverse target audiences; and reliable, credible, professional information sources. I only included resources that are middle-school appropriate, although the language and concepts of certain items may be challenging for some 8th graders. Also, I had families in mind when creating this board. Perhaps multiple members of your household could each explore a row or a column, and share what you learned with each other. There are so many reading lists, social media posts, and other items flying around — maybe this format will help to structure and organize the exploration. Of course that will not be possible or appropriate for every family’s situation.”

Thanks for your donation to our scholarship fund!

We want to thank the 7th grade families who donated the money from the cancelled raft trip to our scholarship fund.

The Cyndi Dailey-Smith and Howard B. Smith Scholarship Fund provides support for Bigelow students who might not be able to otherwise participate in cultural and curricular enrichment learning opportunities, such as field trips and the NYC trip for eighth graders.

2020-2021 Directory information

Incoming Freshmen at Newton North High School

Newton North High School uses the same online directory that we use here at Bigelow (Membership Toolkit). We will be authorizing them to automatically import graduating students from our account so that no student is overlooked. This would be a great time to log in and make sure your information and share settings are up to date. Just visit: https://bigelowpto.org/directory/

If you still have children at Bigelow next year, you will be able to select which school to view upon logging in. If your child is not moving on to Newton North, please be sure to let the Newton North directory administration know so they can have the PTSO remove your child from the directory. Let us know if you have any other questions about this.

Incoming 6th graders at Bigelow

Incoming 6th graders from Underwood, Lincoln-Eliot and Ward, will be automatically added to Bigelow’s Directory in August. Mason Rice and out of the district families will need to enter their information manually when the system is ready to accept new families at the end of summer.

Access to the Bigelow Directory

Access to the online directory is free and it can be used by all Bigelow families at all times. In the summer, online access will be paused for a month in July while we update information. Thanks for your understanding. If you have any questions, please contact our Directory chair, Megan Flynn at maflynn59@gmail.com